


Magenta Tie

by Reynier



Series: Transcendence Comics Black Label [6]
Category: Gravity Falls, Transcendence AU - Fandom
Genre: Academia, Asexuality, Discussions of sexuality, Gen, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26687260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reynier/pseuds/Reynier
Summary: Alcor flies to a demonology conference with the chair of his department. Conversations ensue.
Relationships: Alcor the Dreambender & Jo Schulz
Series: Transcendence Comics Black Label [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1579258
Comments: 14
Kudos: 64





	Magenta Tie

**Author's Note:**

> > L'avis des autres t'influence, et  
> T'as pièce en poche pour ton café  
> Tout c'que tu veux c'est être parfait  
> Cravate Magenta!  
> T'es froid comme Paris en hiver  
> Froid comme Paris en hiver, Paris en hiver
> 
> —LEJ, "Paris en Hiver" 

“So let me get this straight,” said Eddie Galvano, his feet propped on the windowsill and his hands crossed behind his head. “You just— up and switched to demonology? From _agronomy_?”

“It was— a necessary career choice,” said Tyrone— _Alcor_ — stiffly. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, a funny picture in aged formal tweed and clutching a coffee mug with the words _BLEE ARG_ just legible on it. “I, um… had some run-ins that made me realise I could live life better.”

Eddie nodded approvingly, and, in his typical voice that sounded like he might be joking or might not depending on whether you wanted him to, said, “Sex and ragers. You know, the Mathematics department really knows how to throw down.”

“They do?” said Jo, morbidly curious. “You’re joking. You have to be joking.”

“Cross my heart and swear to die,” said Eddie, making a vague gesture on his checkered shirt. “No, no, I’m joking. You know, we all go into academia for the party life.”

“Ignore him,” Jo said out of the corner of their mouth to Alcor. The tense respect of their relationship felt very contingent on remembering that he was not human, that he was not mortal. Eddie never remembered anything to do with social graces. Also, in his defense, he was unaware that Tyrone Pines was not a lecturer from the Greater Californian Federation and instead was a primordial chaos demon intent on repenting his chaotic ways for, it was safe to assume, at least the next decade. 

Alcor snorted and took a sip of his coffee, looking shy but not uncomfortable. “I never ignore anything. Please, Professor Galvano, tell us about the Math department orgies.”

A brief look passed over Eddie’s face that indicated he was trying to decide on the most comedic lie to tell and then realising he was too tired to be creative. “No, it’s fine,” he said feebly, “I wouldn’t— presume to share the sordid details. I’m a private man. Deeply respectful. Would never sleep and tell.”

“Mhm,” said Alcor, with the driest skepticism Jo had ever seen. “What’s in your mug, then? Irish coffee? You’re telling quite a bit.”

“Shut up,” said Eddie, and threw a pencil at him.

* * *

It was disconcerting to watch something pretend to be mortal when it wasn’t. Even the rest of the department— withdrawn, self-obsessed in a distracted way that assumed everyone regarded their research with utmost importance— noticed before the fall term was through. Tyrone Pines smiled too wide. Tyrone Pines knew more about summoning than the summoning professors. Tyrone Pines refused to hire TAs, and graded everything himself— this was, perhaps, the point that caused the most defensive consternation. 

Winter rolled around, blistering and frozen. The Demonology and Occult Studies Association, run by a perpetually dismal grad student named Liu Heixing, wanted to send ten students to a conference in Paris: they needed a faculty advisor to come with. Jo needed a break, needed a trip that would let them focus on their students instead of their studies. 

The Demonology and Occult Studies Association suddenly remembered they needed two faculty advisors after all. 

“Sorry,” said Alcor sheepishly, twenty minutes into their flight. He was tucked origami-like into the window seat, staring out the window with an expression of careful curiosity. “I really wanted to come.”

“Mhm,” said Jo.

“I didn’t do anything— _bad._ ”

“Yeah,” said Jo.

“I don’t have any nefarious schemes, I promise.”

“I believe you,” said Jo.

He wilted against the seat in front of him. “You’re mad at me.”

“You’re your own— ah— person.” Jo thought they were being quite fair, all things considered. He _hadn’t_ done anything wrong, not really. This was the most innocuous use of his powers imaginable. Still, they could never quite ignore the nagging voice in their head that said small shifts in reality were a perfect red herring for large ones. And everyone in New Hesse remembered Jan Faust. 

“You can be mean to me,” said Alcor, in a voice that verged on piteous. “We’re on a plane. I’m not going to do anything. I just wanted to go to the conference.”

Jo stared patiently at the blue fabric of the seat in front of them. It was an old plane— the European Theocratic States did not truck with newfangled magic, even if restrictions had been loosened in recent decades. In United Türkiye there were massive lounge-carriers that drifted through the sky in invisible luxury. But that would have involved practical demonology, and Hessian academics were confined to the theoretical. “Couldn’t you just— I don’t know— apparate there? You don’t have to mess with people’s minds.”

“But I—” He stopped, his claws scratching absent-mindedly at the armrest on his seat, and half of a rueful smile crawled across his face. “I wanted to get to know the students. I want them to like me. I don’t know how to teach. I haven’t talked to people in so long. I used to be a really good teacher, you know.”

Jo didn’t. “Okay.” 

“Something’s— you’re not saying something.” He frowned at them, his eyes glinting gold, and his voice dropped from a faux-whine to a more serious tone. “I really won’t do anything to you. What are you thinking?”

Well, promises were promises. They had said worse to him. Probably. “What is your obsession with academia?”

He blinked. “What?”

“Is it— some kind of ego boost? It is, isn’t it? Swan around the fancy professors with their fancy degrees and gawk at how little they actually understand about you?”

“Oh,” said Alcor, “I— ah—”

“It _is_ ,” crowed Jo, but under their breath because it was a crowded plane and if other passengers knew that Alcor the Dreambender was sitting by a window seat looking dreadfully embarrassed and wearing a passé tweed suit they might react with some slight alarm. “You’re so frustrated that no one understands you, and you’re so alone, so you waltz into lecture halls and hope against hope that you’re wrong. Hope someone has figured you out. What are you going to do if it happens, propose?”

“I— ah— you know— I actually hadn’t realised that.” His face scrunched up in embarrassment, Alcor rubbed at his temple with one long-nailed hand. “You’re really something special, Jo Schulz. I should have given you more credit.”

They let out a breath they did not realise they had been holding. “Well,” they said, huffing a faint laugh, “I’m a lesbian, so you don’t need to kiss me for it.”

There was a sound like a creaking rusted gate as Alcor began to laugh, slowly at first and then louder, pebbles rolling down a hill in an avalanche. “No, I’m sorry, actually. I called you boring one time. That was very rude. Very demonic of me— what you actually are is _nice_. I don’t know how to deal with nice demonologists. You unsettle me.” He paused and waved one hand as though it needed to be physically announced that what followed was a joke. “It’s like, you actually want to help people? What’s with that? Demonologists are supposed to make stupid mistakes because they want to be powerful, and then I can point and laugh without feeling bad about it.”

Suddenly a memory of something they were supposed to tell him descended like a blimp and exploded in front of Jo. “Oh, _fuck._ Did you— have you— uh… have you looked at the conference schedule? There’s a panel that might either interest you very much or cause you to, well, curl up and die.”

“Tell me.” A nervous grin made itself known, far too sharp. “Tell me, tell me, tell me.”

Wordlessly, Jo pulled out the paper they had printed— New Hessian Air did not allow MagiOrbs— and passed it to him, caught between dread and humour. 

For a long period Alcor stared at the listings. Then he made a low keening noise like a balloon running out of air and collapsed sideways against the window. “Good Lord,” he probably attempted to say, but the censorspell of the plane corrected it to _good lad._ “I don’t know whether to be horrified or flattered. Do I go? Will my immortality cease in the face of such monumental embarrassment? Or do I skip out on it and then hear snippets later from Liu Heixing and their well-intentioned groupies?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Jo mused. A part of their brain said: four months of colleagueship and you’re practically _friends_ with Alcor the Dreambender. They ignored it. “Do you want an outside perspective on your sex life?”

“Maybe they’ll tell me things I don’t know. I could find out I’m straight,” he offered. “That would be an exciting new development.”

Jo blinked. “You’re not? I thought the whole— I mean— Mizar.”

“See, this? _This_ is why I hate demonologists.” But he was laughing. “No, she’s— like family. It’s complicated. Demon things, you know. But no, I’m aro-ace.”

“Wait,” Jo said, waving a hand as thought they could crank the conversation back a notch. “You can’t just drop demon family on me and then breeze past onto sexuality smalltalk. Go back.”

“No, shan’t,” said Alcor breezily. “You promised to treat me like any other faculty member. Maybe I was lying about demon family.” He raised an eyebrow at their flabbergasted face. “Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll tell you about it when you retire, how’s that?” Without waiting for an answer, he said, “Great! Anyway, I think I’ll go. Maybe they’ll give explicit details. That would be mortifying but funny.”

“Well— at least there’s no chance they could give _accurate_ explicit details,” Jo reasoned. 

“Oh, no, they could.”

Jo had learned a lot of things in the past four months of working with Alcor. Somehow in the past twenty minutes they had learned even more, including things which felt as though they were told in confidence between friends. _That_ was worrying— the idea that Alcor trusted them enough to tell them this. The only thing more worrying was the fact that a part of them wanted to trust him back. “I thought you said you were asexual?”

“I’m also over a thousand years old,” said Alcor brightly. “I mean, I got curious once or twice. Well, actually more like five or six times.”

“And your review?” Jo asked, bizarrely fascinated to hear a demon’s opinion on sex. 

“Mostly boring and a little bit gross. Not terrible. Don’t regret it. But also glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t get the buzz.”

Jo mulled this over. It was a fair rating on sex, they thought. “I’m not going to insult you by asking about consent. I think I know you well enough to know you have a good hand on your whole reality-warping thing.”

For a second the silence from the seat beside them echoed in the vague background noise of the plane. When Jo glanced over at Alcor they saw him gazing at them with eyes that almost threatened to tear up. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m— actually very touched. If you come to the Alcorian sex panel with me I will debunk everything with real facts. I know that would please the demonologist in you.”

It would. For several minutes they sat in companionable silence, disconcerting in how natural it felt. Then Jo said, “Can I ask a question?”

“Mm?”

“I’ve never heard of a demon identifying as anything,” they said slowly. “I thought it was a defining aspect of the species. No sense of community. You talk about this stuff like a person, not a monster.”

“Yes, well,” said Alcor after a moment. His voice was soft and his gaze trailing out the window was very distant. “I’m not a very good demon, am I?”

Jo blinked. “I always thought you were the best demon of them all. At doing demon things.” _Stop talking, Jo, stop talking._ “Like mass murder.”

“Or,” said Alcor lightly, his hand flittering near theirs as though he wanted to squeeze it in reassurance— to Jo or to him, it was not clear. “Or, I am just an exceptionally bad person.”

“ _All aboard fasten your seatbelts and prepare to land at Eastern Isle-de-France Airport_ ,” a pleasant voice announced over the loudspeaker. “ _Local time is 13:47, the temperature on the ground is -10°C, and we wish you a pleasant time in Paris.”_


End file.
